Capitalization

The problems of capitalization arise because English is made up of so many different languages, and we’ve taken some of our capitalization rules from one language and some from another. The simple explanation of our capitalization rule is that we capitalize proper nouns and the first word of a sentence. Naturally, there are exceptions to the rule, so it’s best to look something up if you’re not sure. A good grammar book or the internet will prove invaluable in this case. There are many websites which will guide you to the capitalization rules for academic writing formats.

Modern methods of communication (texting, e-mail, etc.) make for some fairly sloppy capitalization standards; you may find it difficult to switch from one standard to the other. If you find this to be the case, make the effort to maintain capitalization at all times.